Tag Archives: reading

I was a junior English major at UC Berkeley and my husband, then-boyfriend, was a senior majoring in poli sci. He needed another class to finish out his year and decided to take a seminar led by author Maxine Hong Kingston. I seethed with envy; I couldn’t take the class because I still had major pre-reqs to fulfill. Did my man even know what books she’d written? Could he understand her aura of literary magic?

It was an amazing class, said my guy. And no, she didn’t teach it again until after I’d graduated. But you already figured that would happen, right?

So here I am, many years later, and can interact with Ms. Hong Kingston on Facebook. She is a true gem to follow, especially with her post-election commentary.

In a recent NYT article, she was asked to share the books she read over 2016. I was in awe at the sheer number of books she managed to consume. And I decided that for 2017, I would try to read as many books on her list as possible. One caveat: I would swap out a few in place of those on my own list. Plus, I’d already read a few books she’d listed.